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Ws has recently said he wants to increase intimacy (and he's not just talking about more sex, but when asked, he said sleep together naked, so it obviously is all sex based to him, if that's all he can come up with).

When asked why, he says it strengthens relationships. Yeah, it probably does. But when it only happens after all the shit about cheating and other inappropriate behaviour has come out, it feels like a really crappy booby prize. There's nothing he has done with me which he hadn't happily done with someone else while we were together. So to suggest more of all those things feels insulting now. When asked why it was important to him now but not before, he said it was, but he was too lazy to bother.

So I'm not going to feel special, or particularly loved, when he wants to hold hands out and about, now I know he happily did that with someone else while working away. There's no value in it for him, obviously. And no value in it to me now either.

Has this changed for you? How do you deal with intimacy knowing it was given to someone else while you were together? (It's obviously not comparable to intimacy with previous partners.)

Intimacy has flown out the window.

That's sad, 36years. Does she try to build intimacy again, or not?

I don't think that sex = intimacy, frankly. You can have sex and have it be entirely disconnected and the furthest thing you could imagine from intimacy.

To me, intimacy is about being able and willing to be emotionally vulnerable and connected with your partner. Is your WS trying to do that?

There was no intimacy after infidelity.

This one is tough for me.

What is intimacy? Is it sharing your deep most secrets and feelings? If so, I didn't share a lot of them with WH. I shared them with my GF's whom I have known since grade school.

Is it holding hands? Calling you a term of endearment? Is it "making love"? Is it sitting together watching a show together? Hanging out? Talking about family, kids, and friends?

Whatever it may be, I don't think we have it now.

He shared terms of endearments with his online girlfriend, made plans to have their time together, said they were holding hands virtually, and shared frustrations, dreams and plans for the future. Is that intimacy? If so, then there is nothing unique about my relationship with WH.

For what it’s worth, I read probably the same article recently that it sounds like your wh did. It talked about non sexual naked cuddling and what it scientifically does to your brains during. It was actually mentioned as a replacement for sex when you have dry spells. I don’t know if it’s true but there has been a few things out about it so maybe your h read something that was less about having sex than maybe you are interpreting. Or not.

For me, and h, this is a conversation we actually just had this past weekend. I think that intimacy was something that could not be as fully achieved before as it is now. Not because of the affair but because of my work on mindfulness, vulnerability, and being more authentic/honest. For two people to really share intimacy both people have to be fully there. To us we have many intimate moments in which maybe we are just sitting and quietly talking but we often entwine our legs or hold hands. We are experiencing closeness, feelings of affection, and sharing what’s on our minds. Or sometimes laughing at a joke only we understand, or sometimes it’s looking at something one of our kids sent us and being in wonder as to how we created such a wonderful human. Intimacy to me is truly sharing some moments together, fully without barriers. And I can understand how that is hard to achieve after infidelity and especially how the aftermath is handled. I didn’t

Understand it very well before we went to marriage counseling but I feel like our counselor was really good at giving assignments that helped us build that foundation of understanding it and cultivating it.

Maybe, hikingout... Can you say which article that was? He's working away atm, so I font know what he's been reading, but the way he mentioned it did actually make it sound like something he'd seen, rather than his own idea.

I very much see those shared (non sexual) moments as intimacy, which is why it hurts that he paraded round town holding some woman's hand. He's not a touchy feely person generally, so there was definitely something to it beyond normal behaviour. I've held hands with him and the kids exclusively in the past 20 years, which is why something so (apparently) simple to him hurts me a great deal.

He says he's trying to be emotionally vulnerable and connect, but how does this work in practice? He's away, so isn't around for small acts of service and similar, he's been in regular contact this time, but there's no great emotional depth to it. Idk. He never really tells me what he thinks unless I push, and when what he says pisses me off, he says he'll not say anything next time. He's emotionally stunted, that's for sure.

Torninshock I feel we have nothing unique to our relationship, just as you describe. Those things feel forced now, not natural as they did before. And they're just reminders of his shitty behavior. Hard, isn't it?

Hikingout, it is really nice to read how your relationship is so close.

Intimacy requires trust to flourish.

And forgiveness.

When I spoke about intimacy with my STBXW prior to DDay2, she took it to mean sex. She wasn't putting out enough, and that made her resentful and less likely to put out.

For the record, we had sex 12 times in 2018 and 2019, so... yeah, it was pretty dry.

But for me, intimacy is something completely different. Yes, I resorted to "needing" sex to feel a connection, because we weren't getting it any other way. I was so pushed away and pushed aside (as I found out, in favor of another couple, but whatever) that the loneliness was killing me. The isolation was making me so incredibly depressed I was on the verge of suicidal ideation.

Now, there is a problem with men, specifically men in the western world. We... just don't touch. We don't get touched. Not skin to skin, not through clothing, we just don't. the ONLY touch we have is with our partners and it is sexual 99% of the time. As we grow and develop in this position, we come to associate sex with that intimacy that we need as humans. When it is withdrawn, that entire portion of our needs is just -gone-. Entirely gone.

And that wreaks absolute havoc on us.

Now, is it something that women are -required- to fix for us? Hell no, it's not. Nobody should ever be required to give sex to fix another person, or for any reason at all. There were times where I desperately wanted to end an encounter with my ex because I was uncomfortable with what was happening, and she demanded that I finish, and then she held it against me. It was a form of sexual abuse.

But when it comes to men and intimacy and touching, realize that we are just completely and totally starved for it. The vast majority of us don't have intimate personal relationships with ANYONE other than our partners.

We have golf buddies, football buddies, work buddies, fishing buddies, and that's the level it stays at. Sometimes, once in a great while, we have that one friend that we can completely open up to, and those people are like brothers to us.

And our wives and girlfriends get E V E R Y T H I N G else. It's not fair to them, and it's not fair to us. Men simply do not know how to have intimacy because we don't have it. From the time we hit puberty until we fucking die, we don't have it EXCEPT with our partners.

I can't snuggle up to my daughters because it's considered weird, since I am a grown man and they are teen or preteens. They think it's weird, I think it's weird, and other people think it's weird. However, my ex can. I can't pick up and wrestle with my nieces because I am a grown man and they are young girls and it's considered weird, creepy uncle stuff. Even kicking back on a couch with a nephew on my lap watching a movie, it's all about "Why are you holding him? Put him down."

Same with my bros. There's a prescribed distance between us when we sit down, we can't just pack in and sprawl out on a couch and watch a movie or play video games. I can't wrap an arm around a close friend and share space and contact without it being assumed we're gay.

The point of it is that men often go their whole lives without experiencing ANY kind of intimacy with ANYONE but their partners. We have NO IDEA how to get it, we can only receive it, then we freak TF out because it's like giving a man dying of thirst a sip of water and then no more. We will seek it out where we KNOW we get it, and most of the time, that is sex with our lover. During that time, that glorious time, SOMEONE ELSE IS TOUCHING US. We can viscerally FEEL the presence and acceptance of another person.

So while yes, I think your husband needs to figure out healthier ways to build/rebuild intimacy, if that's even possible, he more than likely literally doesn't know of any other way.

If you're comfortable with showing him what I wrote, I'd say have him read it and see how he feels, what his reaction to it is. I'd be interested in hearing what he thought.

[This message edited by Incarnate at 3:45 AM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

Incarnate, I appreciate your view on it. I do think that WS would jump on it as an excuse as to why he loved holding other women's hands etc, but it's just another excuse. Because I don't have any more intimacy with anyone else than he does, friend or family. We both hug our kids the same, and if he doesn't hold the hand of our youngest as much as I do, that's because he prefers to stride ahead of us when we're out. Throughout the whole relationship, apart from his previous deployment in which a few things occurred which made me question things (the inappropriate lusting after another colleague and lying about time spent alone with her) we lived near his parents and saw them every other week, while I saw mine one holiday a year, as they lived so far away. He had much more contact with other ppl than me, and I didn't use that horrible loneliness I felt as an excuse to get close to other ppl while he was on deployment. Not once.

The real kicker is that this is the life he chose after we had been together for years. One which takes him away for very long periods. He's onboard with friendly colleagues (some of whom are inappropriately friendly), I'm isolated at home with the kids and no family, and friends who I don't socialise on an adult level with because of no childcare. And he's the one who uses it as an excuse? Nope. Not gonna fly.

I have anxiety issues associated with intimacy. And I have this invisible wall built up around me.

I have read various articles throughout the years about sleeping naked to promote intimacy. It's not a new concept.

There is also info out there that men get that close, intimate emotional connection through sex. Men feel loved through sex. Women usually want that emotional connection and intimacy before sex.

Intimacy, for me, is about being vulnerable, sharing thoughts, dreams, ideas, emotions, really deep stuff. That's how it's always been for me. I don't feel any kind of closeness, connection, or intimacy with my fch through sex. I do like to cuddle, though.

Intimacy - it starts with honesty and progresses from there.

If you are talking about sex - for me, for now - sex is just that. And I make sure it is good for me.

Oxytocin.

Apparently women get more oxy-t from cuddling. Men's max flow is in orgasm. Not fair.

But now I understand why my W liked and likes to hold hands, cuddle, hold hands, just do some skin-to-skin stuff without genital involvement, etc.

But intimacy ... I don't have the words.

Stephen Karpman, of Drama Triangle fame, has written quite a bit on it, if you're interested.

Oh gosh, I tried to google naked cuddling for you, Justgetitoverwith. You do NOT want to do that. No. I want to think that I saw the article through facebook, I think the source was elephant journal. I unfollowed it a while ago, because I felt that some of their articles were too liberal in terms of cheating and other things (think Esther Pearl) and so I didn't want to see those any more. If you have your Parental filter on your google, you will find some articles though. I don't recommend it otherwise because I got porn sites for the first several results.

It sounds like to me from your follow up comments that some of the problem isn't really intimacy, it's rebuilding some of the things that would support you being able to have intimacy (even non-sexual). I know it's hard to revisit things like holding hands when it was carried out with the other woman. And, if he's emotionally stunted, and also away (deployed?) it's going to be hard for you to have the feelings that make intimacy natural.

Tallgirl, thank you. I didn't know how that would be received coming from a WS. But, I do think that a WS is in more control of restoring a lot of this by being able to see where their own barriers were, and mine were many. I also think a good MC can really help you take the baby steps needed to begin. I won't say we don't still have our days, we definitely do, but they get a little bit further apart and easier to handle as time goes by.

Justgetitoverwith (and hikingitout),

Incarnate has literally the best advice on here. WOW! I understand things from a male perspective. So I get what your husband is saying and so does Incarnate.

The issue is, your WH wants more intamacy. This is a big deal! I don't know your story, so I'll have to do some reading up. But I'll give you a second on what incarnate said that you don't typically get from guys.

I'd say being intamate is the closeness, or bond that you share with someone. To grow intamacy is to do things that create that bond. This can be done through sharing personal struggles, insecurities, being vulnerable to someone to try and foster understanding and trust and love.

Incarnate shared some deep stuff that all men feel. Men are taught not to share feelings, not to be vulnerable, and not to touch anyone. Your husband is wanting to start to share an intimate bond with you. He doesn't know how and read in some article that skin to skin touch creates bonding. He is trying to connect with you. Think of other ways (if your not yet comfortable with that) that you can create the bond to be intimate. I think this is a loveing step toward trying to rebuild the relationship. But it's almost always perceived perverted by women because of what society teaches them and men. Really look into this. It sounds like him not knowing how to create this I bond and intamacy (most men don't) might be one of his biggest why's.

If you do love him and there's a possibility of R, this needs to be addressed correctly. Either 1 communicate with him (non judge mentally) that you are not ready for any intamacy right now due to your healing, but you will let him know when you are. Or 2 you are not ready for that kind of intamacy, but that you want to start with intimate conversations or holding hands or cuddling. Or 3 you both can work with your therapist to identify both of your issues with intamacy. I'd suggest no matter what do 1 and 3.

Do not say he just 'wants some' or that you're giving your body up 'cause he needs it'. Don't go about it with that attitude. Think of it as he is trying to show you he loves you. Or is trying to build or recreate love for you. If he is anything like I've been and incarnate have been, he is trying to build intamacy and love but doesn't know how. And the misunderstanding and miscommunication can cause this to be very harmful.

I brought this up to my wife, before, during and after her affair. She always looked at me like some kind of monster and hated everything. I tried to get her to see that naked cuddling was a way I wanted to show my love to her without 'getting some' and she kept taking it the wrong way. It was a big issue that I had to work though in IC. My wife, while working with our IC who is a sex therapist, was able to understand that I'm just wanting to build a connection, but as a typical male never learned how to do it and had no way communicating it effectivly.

Think of it this way, try going for weeks without anyone touching you. You're kids, our family and friends. Imagine never being able to tell anyone what your feeling and issues that you have. Imagine for weeks wondering if your the only one that feels like this or that. And then when you bring it up to someone, they feel uncomfortable and end the conversation quickly. That is how I feel all the time. It gets to where I crave touch from my wife, for input, love and affection. Try to healthily communicate this issue to your husband. I'd suggest MC for this issue. But I honestly believe it's a step in the right direction for him. It's just up to you how to build intamacy and when you're ready. But make sure you communicate it to him. Don't leave him hanging wondering if he's going to stay trapped inside of himself for days months or years. Give him a good expectation so that he can be working to something and working on his love for you. That might be something as simple as saying 'I'm to tired to do the dishes. I would really appreciate it if you would help me out and do them for me'. I bet he'd jump at the chance to build that love right now.

[This message edited by RedHeadTemper at 11:36 AM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

Incarnate, I appreciate your view on it. I do think that WS would jump on it as an excuse as to why he loved holding other women's hands etc, but it's just another excuse. Because I don't have any more intimacy with anyone else than he does, friend or family. We both hug our kids the same, and if he doesn't hold the hand of our youngest as much as I do, that's because he prefers to stride ahead of us when we're out. Throughout the whole relationship, apart from his previous deployment in which a few things occurred which made me question things (the inappropriate lusting after another colleague and lying about time spent alone with her) we lived near his parents and saw them every other week, while I saw mine one holiday a year, as they lived so far away. He had much more contact with other ppl than me, and I didn't use that horrible loneliness I felt as an excuse to get close to other ppl while he was on deployment. Not once.

The real kicker is that this is the life he chose after we had been together for years. One which takes him away for very long periods. He's onboard with friendly colleagues (some of whom are inappropriately friendly), I'm isolated at home with the kids and no family, and friends who I don't socialise on an adult level with because of no childcare. And he's the one who uses it as an excuse? Nope. Not gonna fly.

Yaknow, I get that. I really do. And I'm not saying that anything I wrote up above is an excuse for your WH, not in the slightest. I've heard it from tons of cheating men, "Oh, my wife/GF was cold and distant, and I just wanted to feel loooooooved" as an excuse for why they cheated.

Nah. Fuck that bullshit. Cheating is slimy and gross no matter the motivations. Address problems within a relationship and if they aren't able to be fixed (or one or both parties aren't willing to fix them) then end it BEFORE looking for someone else. That is a stance I am very, very firm on, and from what I have read from you, I have a feeling you feel the same.

But now, in your current, not-over relationship, the need for intimacy is plain, and he doesn't know how to build it. I was simply offering insight on why that might be, not as an excuse for his actions in any way. Your situation may differ, of course, and your mileage may vary (as with any statistic, even overwhelming ones, there are exceptions to the rule), but as a good rule of thumb, most men in the western world aren't ever taught how to develop intimacy with others, we can only accept it from our partners.

Intimacy is building walls between you and the world, but leaving an open window between you and your spouse. No secrets, you make plans together, spend time together, fight, discuss, LIVE.

To me, that’s intimacy, what I thought I was getting in marriage.

But nope

I withdrew intimacy after DDays. Fine, if he doesn’t provide intimacy neither will I